Sukothai Historic Park

Sukothai Historic Park

Our bike tour of the Sukothai historic park began at our hotel. Our guide from the day before brought bikes to us and we rode the short distance to the town. The first pictures, below, were taken outside the enclosed section of the park. I liked seeing cows grazing among the ruins.

Note the cows’ long ears. Our guide said that the cows with the long ears are not slaughtered. The ones with regular-length cow-ears are the ones used for meat.

This small chedi surrounded by elephant figures is also outside the enclosed park. I’m including this picture because it turned out well, not because I know the significance of the chedi or what relics it may contain.

Entering the park, our guide explained that unlike many medieval cities, Sukothai had four entrances, north, south, east, and west. We began on the northern side, with a visit to Wat Si Chum and The Talking Buddha.

A very famous image

The story as told by our guide is that the King took advantage of the physical layout and acoustics of this temple to create the illusion that the Buddha image could speak, though of course the actual speaker would have been a monk or other person in the king’s service. This subterfuge was used to give courage to the soldiers before an upcoming battle – the voice would exhort them to be brave and uphold the honor of the king and the city. The solders, who must have been assembled outside the niche where the Buddha image is seated, were no doubt convinced that it really was the statue speaking to them. In the photo with the close –up of the Buddha image, you can see a small window high up on the wall to the left. There are tunnels that gave access into and around the structure on both sides, but they are closed off now.

Not far from Wat Si Chum and The Talking Buddha is this ruin of a chedi, which dates back farther than the Sukothai kingdom. There were three of them together at one time, but only this one remains somewhat intact.

The guide explained that this chedi is in the style of the Khmer (i.e., Cambodian), shaped like a phallus rather than the rounded shape topped by a spire that is typical of Sukothai (as in the chedi with the elephants seen above). The phallus-symbolism goes back to earlier, non-Buddhist religions. I hope to understand the Khmer influence on Thai architecture and art better after visiting Cambodia later this year.

To the east you find this large square ruin with many Buddha images, such as the large Standing Buddha in the second picture.

Standing Buddha

The grounds in this area of the park are especially beautiful, with more long-eared cows grazing and trees that are so symmetrical, it seems that they must have been trimmed and groomed into shape. However, our guide said they just grew that way.

Mango tree in the background

At temples. you often see banyan trees like the one below with little images tucked in between the roots. It is believed that spirits reside in these trees. The images are there to remind us of them.

Banyan Tree

At temples and in parks, you also often see colorful strips of cloth wrapped around banyan trees; supposedly this is to keep the spirits in the tree.

Below is a picture of our guide talking with Kathleen about something. I’ve mentioned him so often, I thought you should see him.

Moving on through the park, we circled around this beautiful pond, which serves as a kind of reservoir, collecting rainwater for the town.

Toward the final one-third of the tour, the images and monuments began to blur together, but I want to show you a few last pictures.  Here is a famous Walking Buddha image from the park.

 The next two pictures show a Buddha image that was used at one time to hide relics and other valuable objects to keep them safe from marauding Burmese or other enemies. In the picture on the right, you can see very clearly where surgery was performed on the statue’s belly to remove the objects.

With surgery scar

The next picture is a statue of King Ram Kham Haeng, the most famous of the Sukothai kings. He is much revered as a strong king politically and as a scholar who created the Thai alphabet. Sorry the picture is so dark – the sun was going down.

Finally, this picture of the palace, taken as the light was fading fast. We chose to end our tour here, rather than trying to squint at inscriptions and images in the dusk.

Sukothai is widely regarded as the beginning of Thai art and architecture, distinct from Khmer and other influences. To understand it all better, I plan to go back in time, to a historic site in Cambodia, and forward, to the historic ruins of Ayutthaya in Thailand. Ayutthaya was an important kingdom that partly overlapped with and then succeeded Sukothai as the center of power for a time.  – Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy these pictures.